Beaufort, SC, Bay Street

One story building to the right of the red awning is the site of
Daniel de Saussure's house. It was built before 1770 and destroyed by
a fire in 1907 which also leveled about a third of Beaufort's
commercial district. Daniel de Saussure was a merchant who brokered
the local import and export business that served many of the
surrounding rice and indigo plantations prior to the American
Revolution. He maintained warehouses further to the east.

His home, arranged very much like a Charleston single house and
containing his Beaufort office, was one of the tallest buildings in
Beaufort. It was an imposing 3 and a half story tabby structure with
offices on the ground floor and his family's private residence on the
3 levels above. Tabby was a common building material made of crushed
oyster shells, sand and lime. With no native stone and with only a
limited about of clay found in the immediate area for making brick,
tabby was a useful substitute for artificial stone, at least until
until the introduction of concrete in the early 20th century.

Part of the tabby walls of an adjacent store building, also belonging
to Daniel de Saussure, remains standing and belongs to the same
building as the red awning.

Once he had moved his family and prinicpal business to Charleston
prior to 1780, most of Daniel de Saussure's business operations in
Beaufort, including stores and warehouses, were transferred to his
protege and clerk, John Verdier. Daniel's son Henry William de
Saussure was a contemporary of John Verdier, though a few years
younger.

Verdier became one of Beaufort's most successful and colorful
merchants after the Revolution. The Verdiere house at 801 Bay Street
with its double portico appears to the left in this photograph, in the
next block. The Verdier was where LaFayette stayed during his official
visit to Beaufort in the 1820's. Coincidently, LaFayette was the guest
of Henry de Saussure when the old hero of the Revolution traveled to
Columbia during what some have called LaFayette's grand farewll visit
to America in 1825.